Since a couple of years, the All-terrain vehicles (“ATV” or “ATVs”), utility-terrain vehicle (“UTV” or “UTVs”) or other recreational off highway vehicles (“ROV”) (hereinafter, ATV should be understood to refer as comprising ATV, UTV, ROV and other similar vehicles) market has been growing steadily. Moreover, ATV users have been using their vehicles for new tasks such as snow removal, load transport, etc. To help ATV users make the fullest use of their vehicles, numerous accessories have been put on the market. ATV and other similar vehicles are often equipped with implements such as plows to allow the vehicles to displace snow, dirt, soil, gravel, etc. Such implements are typically removably mounted to the vehicles via appropriate supporting frames or supporting frame assemblies.
However, in order for the ATV user to use an accessory to its full capacity, the accessory must be easy to use and more importantly, easy to install. In the field of support frame assemblies for snow plows and other front-mounted implements, this is even more important since these assemblies are generally relatively heavy and thus difficult to manipulate and install.
Support frame assemblies currently on the market are not easy and/or are time consuming to install. In the vast majority of cases, when the user is alone, he or she (hereinafter, for the sake of simplicity, only the masculine form will be used) must use brute force to install the frame assembly on his ATV. This comes from the fact that all the weight of the plow assembly rests on the ground. Thus, the user must overcome the friction force between the ground and the plow. Moreover, since snow plows are generally made of metal, they can be relatively heavy and the friction force between the ground and the plow can be relatively large.
Thus, in general, most frame assemblies currently on the market are more easily installed when two or more individuals are present.
As a result, in current frame assemblies, the majority of the systems on the market offer the possibility of a quick attach, which allows the user minimal handling to mount the plow system on the ATV. Unfortunately, these systems require the user to get out of the vehicle to detach the plow system from the ATV. Some plow systems comprise quick release mechanisms which allow removing the plow system from the vehicle without undue labor. However, even these quick release mechanisms require the user to get out of the vehicle. There are even some plow systems that are not equipped with quick release mechanisms and imply that the users should lie down under the vehicle to install or detach the plow push frame from the ATV.
In view of the foregoing, there is indeed a need for a new and improved support frame assembly for a plow or other implement which mitigates at least some of the shortcoming of prior art support frame assemblies.